Weeks or months, even years of seeing each other, of loving each other, then nothing. The other plays the dead, or the ghost, precisely. the ghosting, from English ghost (ghost) is a cruel way of breaking up with someone, disappearing completely, overnight, without any explanation or letter. The so-called “ghosted” person, faced with a wall of silence and incomprehension, can easily plunge into anxiety or even depression. How to react and get out of ghosting?

This way of breaking up without any explanation is a new form of relationship violence of our time, which has however existed for several decades, when one “went out and bought cigarettes” without coming back. However, this practice seems to have amplified with the attitude of relational consumerism of our time, with dating apps offering a multitude of possible partners.

According to Cécile Gu Interest, psycho-practitioner and author of “To love is to take the risk of surprise” (Albin Michel, 2020): “It is a radical break which testifies to a consumerist and utilitarian relationship in the relationship to the other, as we see in other social relations, as for example in the work with brutal dismissals or factories moved at night without warning the workers ”.

But before concluding that it is ghosting, the disappearance of the person can first of all make one think of an accident: we first face great anguish, since the other literally “pretends to be dead”. The ghosted person is plagued by endless unanswered questions, great uncertainty, and confusion between the real and the imaginary.

Feelings of rejection, abandonment, loss of self-esteem and confidence, frustration, excessive guilt, shame: here is a small sample of what a person who is the victim of a ghost can feel.

First of all, as soon as we realize that we are the victim of ghosting, we must at all costs cut off all communication and extinguish any desire to ask for explanations. It can be good to externalize and write down what you wanted to say to the other, but without sending the message. One solution is to share your thoughts and feelings with close friends, or a therapist, in order to verbalize things, without getting frustrated. The more we try to want to get in touch with the “ghoster”, then our suffering will worsen, in the absence of a response from him.

Indeed, we are facing here a person who is not able to take his responsibilities, and in all cowardice, will never respond (at least with authenticity) to our requests. The ghoster refuses by his gesture to consider us as a human being worthy of interest, he has made the other object. The only way out is to no longer consider it in return, and even to block it on social networks and phone, email, etc.

After the astonishment of the departure of the other without any other warning sign, after the emotions linked to the feeling of abandonment, it is advisable to wonder. Has this situation happened before? Could you anticipate it somehow? Was there an imbalance in the relationship? If we have allowed the other to always take precedence over the relationship, to make the decisions, to let them manage our life, it may be that the person who left us in this way has lost the respect he had. for us, having objectized. If we did everything to make the relationship work, by submitting to the desires of the other, by forgetting our identity, it is undoubtedly at the origin of the attitude of the ghoster, even if nothing excuses it. .

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: “It is madness to hate all roses because a thorn has stung you, to give up all dreams because one of them has not come true, to give up to all attempts because we failed… ”.

Of course, it will take time to rebuild after a ghosting episode, which remains very traumatic and destructive for many people. After a necessary period of remission, we will no doubt still be afraid to embark on a new love experience, with the need to control everything, to stay on our guard. It may be difficult to give one’s full trust and to open up fully to the other. However, over time, we should not be locked into cynicism and general mistrust of others, and particularly in romantic relationships. Over time, we will learn to let go again and to be surprised in a positive way by the other in the relationship.